Messages sometimes not received

[digitaldave]

I have a problem with messages, as sometimes I don't receive ones that are sent to me.

During the day, I leave my iPhone in a locker as I work in an industrial setting and don't want to risk damaging it. When it's in there, I put it in to airplane mode so it's not constantly trying to connect to a base station, draining the battery. When I turn airplane mode off, it usually downloads any outstanding messages. However, I've had a couple of occasions where messages haven't been received on the iPhone - I know they were sent because they've turned up on my Mac, just not the phone.

Has anyone else had a similar problem, and if so is there a solution? I may try having them sent to my iPad as well, now that messages sync across devices, but it would be nice to know if there's a known issue and if anything can be done to fix it...

Thanks,

Dave.

 

[ebiggs]

It's tricky to diagnose these kinds of issues.

Are the messages you aren't receiving on your phone showing up on your Mac as iMessages (blue) or regular SMS (green)? If they are showing up as iMessages, then this issue may be just a byproduct of how the technology works.

When your iPhone is off or in airplane mode, iMessages, unlike SMS via carrier, don't cache and wait for the device to turn back on. In fact, when your phone is offline, the sender can't even send an iMessage to you to begin with (it will fail on the senders end and have to be sent as an SMS). Unless however, your Mac is on and connected, then iMessages get routed to the Mac (and I don't think the message is ever synced back to the phone when it comes online).

Ultimately the sure fire way to make sure you get all your messages on your phone is to have your iPhone be the only device that is connected to iMessage. That way when it's offline, people sending you texts will always be sent as SMS. Alternatively you can make sure your Mac is off while at work, or use the iPad as you mentioned and just double check all devices.

 

[dk001]

Simple check (seen this a few times...), if you have a SIM card, have it replaced. I know this is a common issue on AT&T.

 

[digitaldave]

Thanks for the replies. I think I've worked out what's going on...

I missed a message recently when only my iPhone was set to receive messages, and it was switched to airplane mode. However, I've noticed that I have both my phone number and email address set as possible addresses for receiving iMessages, so I guess when the phone was switched off, the iMessage system was trying to use that instead of the phone number.